Shimen soka Sukeban
by FluffleNeCharka
Summary: Kimiko has long given up on trying to find her mother, but when a Shen Gon Wu activates that can locate anyone the user desires, she longs for it. Yet as she tries to steal back the Wu from Chase, she finds he knew her mother all too well...
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Okay, this fic was a long time coming. I noticed that while we have fics giving Rai and Omi some gentic backstory wherein they are related/their ancestors were related to various canon characters, there's not much for Kimiko. So I was inspired to kind of flesh out a non Mary Sue mother for Kimiko.

This chapter was meant to be kind of nostalgic, and give you a look at what Kimiko went through regarding her mother. Don't worry, we'll get to the Wu and Wu related drama next chapter. I just wanted a background chapter to kind of set up the situation for Kimiko, since this is mostly her story.

I hope you'll all review and tell what you think, what I can improve upon, and what you liked in this story.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

- -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- -

Yamada Ao.

That was her mother's name.

It was all Kimiko knew of her at first. There were no pictures, no photo albums to give her anything else. As a five year old, she ransacked the house one day, trying in vain to find some hidden treasure that would tell her who her mother was. The attic, her father's room and the bookshelves did not yield any clue to the young girl. Only the birth certificate her father kept hidden in his closet told Kimiko her mother's name, and that they were unmarried when she was born. It was so little, but she clung to it, memorizing the kanji in her mother's name and wishing she could read more.

She tried to picture her. Ao - _blue_. Her mother must have had the same blue eyes Kimiko did, then. That was very little to go off of, honestly. Yet it was all she had, because the subject of her mother still brought tears to her father's eyes. Even asking small questions could send him into a wordless depression lasting days. Ever since she could remember, she knew not to ask about her mother. The only time her father had ever volunteered information was when it was time to sign medical documents and give Ao's history to the nurses. Each time Kimiko got really hurt, a skinned knee or a badly sprained ankle (or a broken ankle, in one case), he would take her to the doctor. Painkillers, antibiotics and bedrest would follow like clockwork every time, to keep his little girl healthy. The little seven year old girl who, amazingly enough, was never so badly hurt as to make a sound when her father was talking.

"Is there a history of this kind of injury on the mother's side?"

"Yes," Papa would say, if it was a sprained ankle. "No," he'd say, for everything else.

"Is there a history of allergy on the mother's side - to medication or specific foods?"

"Her only allergy is chocolate. Kimi-chan does not have that allergy, however." Papa would grin as the nurse would inevitably say how awful it must be to be allergic to chocolate. "Well, she never cared."

Then, the real kicker, the moment where Kimiko would cringe and moan, trying to block out the words that came next.

"Did the mother ever use drugs or stimulants?"

"_Yes._"

And Kimiko would try and block out those words, erase them beyond her memory. They stayed there, burned into her throughout her years. That one word answer warped her view of her mother, her mental image of a pristine gaijin who her father had swept off her feet. There was no denying that when Kimiko saw the drug users among her peers parents, she cringed. Bad hair, bad teeth, bad posture, bad manners. Was this her mother? Was this what she was like, what she looked like, how she acted? The girl cringed and learned by the age of eight what streets to take walking home to avoid the druggies. She did not want to see them, and in her mind she tried her hardest not to picture her own mother that way.

But the question arose, what was her mother like? How had she gotten into drugs? The birth certificate said Kimiko was born in Ishinomaka, so one day the incredibly anxious nine year old took the trains to there. All the while she knew that she could be arrested for pre-delinquincy if caught, her knocking knees couldn't keep her from going. The city was vast and not at all as fashion focused as Harajuku was. Kimiko walked around, looking at the filthy alleyways where the Ishinomaka addicts were, and tried to picture her mother here. After a while, she began scanning the streets as she walked through the down town slums, searching out for a pair of blue eyes that weren't there. Her feet ached and she hung her head, thinking it had all been a stupid waste of time. Her mother wasn't here, maybe had never been here. Exhausted, ready to burst into tears, she was reluctantly trudging towards the train station when she saw someone.

It didn't matter that the woman was about fifty, or that she was the most filthy person Kimiko had ever seen in her life. She let out a shriek and took off after her like a shot, not stopping until she'd barreled through the crowds to land in front of the old woman. Kimiko was about to ask 'did you know someone named Yamada Ao', but she never had to.

The blue eyed old woman embraced her, and called her grand daughter right away. For the first time in her life, Kimiko felt hopeful she'd finally find out about her mother. Alas, the name brought up just as many tears from her grandmother as it did from her father, and just as few answers. Her grandmother was clearly old, and rambled on in a foreign language Kimiko didn't understand for long stretches of time. The sun sank as it grew colder, but the woman didn't seem to know where she even was. Once she started talking, she couldn't stop, and the girl couldn't look away because it was horrifying. She couldn't leave because this was family, the only member of her mom's family she had ever met. Kimiko, frustrated, eventually called her father on her cellphone. Every screaming reprimand he had died in his throat when she told him she had found her grandmother in Ishinomaka. Her grandmother Zora - a name that was not very gaijin standing but was still not Japanese. He knew she hadn't stumbled upon someone she just thought was related to her.

Kimiko had really jumped cities to find (what he considered) a distant relative.

The recklessness of the move left him speechless. Goodness knows he wouldn't have been stupid or brave enough to go that kind of distance by himself. In the most stunned silence of his life, he came for her, and they helped the old woman onto the subway. She hugged him, too, and the three stayed in awkward quiet for almost the whole ride home. When they arrived at the house, however, she waited until she thought Kimiko was out of earshot, and gave the girl another piece to the puzzle.

"She's as brave as her mother is, though not nearly as tall."

"Most women aren't as tall as Ao-san," her father laughed, a sad sort of laugh, and then led the elderly woman to the guest room. "But she's just as headstrong."

"I told you that if you mocked her, you'd get a child just like her."

They chuckled until they were out of Kimiko's sight, hidden as she was upon the stairs. She heard them talking in murmurs for the rest of the night, but decided not to risk giving away her hiding spot by following. A sense of accomplishment settled upon her shoulders. Finally, she wasn't missing half a family, and she could rest in peace that night.

Tall. Brave. Headstrong. Blue eyes, and from a rough town. The girl shut her eyes tight, picturing her mother in her mind. The images of what could have been haunted her in her dreams. Images of the streets of Ishinomaka raced through her dreams, blurry as a watercolor, punctuated by a woman with bright blue eyes. Each time, Kimiko would reachout to her, only to wake up with a start. Laying there, thinking, she'd ponder over her mother while she waited to drift back to sleep. Her mother must have been a little bit reckless and a bit smart, just like her. Did she ever run away as a child? Did she ever go so far? How tall was she? Did she have an accent? What languages did she speak?

Thousands of questions swirled through her mind, all of which she planned to ask her grandmother the next morning, except her grandmother, Yamada Zora, died of a heart attack in her sleep.

And thus Kimiko was left back at square one, albiet with a bit more information. As she sat, crying through her grandmother's funeral, she realized something. Papa had always said 'she is' rather than 'she was'. Grandma Zora had said 'brave as she is'. Then - Kimiko stopped crying on the spot - that meant her mother wasn't dead. Even though she'd been told that by Papa, she couldn't be if everyone talked about her like she wasn't. She wasn't in Ishinomaka, but...

She was alive.

The only question was where, and even though she knew her chances of finding her mother were slim, she hadn't gone this far to give up. Surely she could find her mother, somewhere out there. Japan was not so big, she huffed to herself the next week as she leafed through a phonebook. There couldn't be all that many women named Yamada Ao out there. Even as she found long lists of them, Kimiko couldn't find it in herself to waver from this path, as she dialed every number she found. Determined, her will of iron carried her far, and though time trickled away and she burned clear through her cell minutes, she couldn't stop. She was so close, she had to be. She could feel it.

Six hours later, the words 'wrong number' were drilled into her mind. For the first time in her childhood, she felt utterly helpless, and turned to her father with the last remnants of her self esteem.

"Please, Papa, you have to tell me - is my mother dead?" her eyes were so defeated, looking up into his, that he finally found himself unable to lie.

"No, she's alive."

"Where is she?" Kimiko begged, "Please, tell me?"

"It's not important, Kimi-chan. Just let it drop," and he turned, expecting her to give up like she always had before.

"NO!" she snapped, eyes flashing, "You have to tell me! Where is she? What was she like? Is she okay? What does she do? Why did she leave? Tell me, tell me, tell me! I know you know!"

"I do NOT know why the hell she left!" he shot back, tears brewing behind his glasses, "She just left one day and never came back!"

"But you know where she is!"

"I won't have you charging off to foreign lands to find her, Tohomiko Kimiko," she knew she was in dangerous territory when he used her full name, "You're better off without her. Please, _let it go_."

She didn't know men could cry before now, but she didn't back down. "WHERE IS SHE?!" she screamed, and at that moment every lightbulb in the house burst into flame as a fire roared into the fireplace. "Where is she, and... why didn't she want me?" Every fire went out as Kimiko stared up at her father's face, empty and questioning. "Where is she?"

"She's in China, Kimiko. She, and some crime lord she never should have gotten involved with." Mr. Tohomiko heaved a sigh. "She loved you, Kimiko. That's WHY she left. Please, try to understand."

"How can I understand if no one will tell me anything?" she asked, not realizing she was crying, too.

"You don't want to understand this, Kimiko. Sometimes, it's better if you don't know some things about people. Sometimes it's better to just remember someone as who they were, not what they did." He kneeled down beside her, and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Your mother was a very caring woman. She loved you, and she loved me. She still does. But there's no way to find her, or bring her home, and I - _we_ need to accept that. She's gone, Kimiko. She's gone."

And she cried uncontrollably that night, and all through school the next day, unable to stop the flow of tears. It was like being told her best friend died. She had failed. She had tried and tried and her mommy was never coming home. Her mom was thousands of miles away. She wasn't coming back. She wasn't going to pop in one day, swoop Kimiko up in her arms and laugh away all the bad things. She wasn't going to somehow appear and justify the drug use. She was gone. Kimiko cried until she hiccuped. She was so sure she could've found her mother and made them a family. But somehow, her father's words broke her willpower that day.

When her classmates next teased Kimiko about her mother, the girl solemnly asked, "What mother? My mother is dead," and so the other parents hushed their children and apologized to her. Kimiko simply nodded, accepting it all in her own way. Her mother, for all intents and purposes, _was_ dead in her mind. She had grieved for her, mourned her, and given up on her.

Yamada Ao.

The name was now hollow.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Finally updated. Sorry about the delay. I promise to be better about this in the future, I just hit a writer's block for this one before. It's all good now, though; I actually know where the plot is going this time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With time, it's possible to make someone unreal within your mind.

Kimiko made her mother unreal, a mere shadow in the back of her mind. She plowed through martial arts classes, immersed herself in fashion. She made friends in her class. She developed a crush on a boy from her school. Her life was a whirlwind of distractions. Dance classes, video games, anything and everything at all she could find. Tohomiko Kimiko went from a somewhat quiet girl to a fullblown social butterfly, and never looked back. With time and effort, she buried her mother under so many activities that she never mentioned her to anyone, not even at home. It was hard, and it hurt, but she had to. It would've hurt more to dwell on it. Fire wasn't an element capable of inaction. She had to do something, and that something was utter denial punctuated by lonely nights spent crying into her pillow, wishing for a mother.

Her fire powers, though at their most basic, were enough to have her father enlist her at the Xiaolin Temple. It was understood by both, though unspoken, that she was going to do something good with her life, unlike her mother. And Kimiko accepted this, because as she had grown, so had her understanding. She knew now what it really meant to be a criminal. Her mother was not someone to be spoken of - she would shred the Tohomiko family's reputation. She was a shame, a spot of black on a shining white reputation, a gaijin in a nihonjin family. The world needed to see a Tohomiko woman doing something good. They needed to be distracted so that the past wouldn't be uncovered. Kimiko never objected to going to the Temple, not once. Maybe she could become the daughter her father always wanted.

There were moments, she knew, where she was alarmingly like her mother. She saw it in her father's face every time. When she got in trouble, when she scored low in kanji, when she wore her hair in a single ponytail - his eyes closed, he sighed and there was an energy in the room that told her she'd done it again. She always tried to explain her actions, went over her kanji for hours, and ripped out the ponytail holder, but it was too late. She was her mother's child, whether she liked it or not. Kimiko was like her in ways that could not be controlled. The narrowing of her eyes when she was mad, the way her fists shook when she was scared, and the startling, untaught ability to run without tiring for huge distances. She didn't know whether to be pleased she was like her mother, like a normal girl would've been, or to be annoyed, like her father was. The moments brought forth emotions she didn't understand or identify. That was why it was so important not to think of the woman. The more she did, the more that things seemed to go wrong. There wasn't really any way to win in all this, just to survive.

If she could keep her mother as a figment of the past, she'd make it through life. If she could keep picturing her as someone she never had to worry about meeting, who was probably dead, maybe she could go through life not caring. It was hard, keeping someone so dear so distant in her mind. Though being with people and doing things helped, there was no denying that deep inside, Kimiko still wanted a mother. She wanted to do normal things like shopping with someone other than her housekeeper. She wanted to have girl talks and do hair with her mom like all those girls on TV. She even wanted to be scolded like a normal girl. Somedays she didn't know what hurt more, pretending nothing was wrong or knowing everything wasn't right. All she could do was ignore everything she felt and act as if her mother had never existed at all, because acting came much more naturally to her on this subject than genuinity did.

And so it was unreal, to her, when the latest Shen Gon Wu was unveiled...

- -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- -

"The Anklet of Anetkah," Dojo read off the scroll to the gathered Dragons, "Oh, I could tell you _stories_ about this. Grand Master Dashi even thought about renaming it The World's Worst Wu. So many people have killed each other over this one..."

"Why?" Omi asked, looking at the scroll with eager eyes, "I do not see what it - IT LETS YOU FIND ANYONE?"

Raimundo snatched the scroll from Omi, and, being taller, held it up high while Omi jumped up and down repeatedly. "Nice. Think we could get a date with this?"

Clay rolled his eyes, half smiling, as Kimiko giggled behind her hands. Omi, not getting even this simple joke (bless his little heart), snatched the scroll from Rai and looked it over again. Dojo was shivering slightly, probably from the Shen Gon Wu activating, but for a moment they were silent in the stillness of the late morning. Then Omi's forehead scrunched into an expression of confusion as he read over the Chinese. (Kimiko tried to read the scrolls sometimes, but Japanese kanji and Chinese hanzhi didn't have enough similarities for her to be any good at it.) Omi turned to Dojo, confused.

"Why does it not let you find your enemies?" he asked, annoyed. "What is the sharp end if I cannot use this in battle?"

"You mean the 'point', Omi." Dojo grinned as he slithered outside, "See, the problem was that the original design let you find _anyone_. Chase Young got a hold of it back in the day. He used it to find more than a few Xiaolin warriors that he knew he could take in a fight. Things got pretty awful for half a century, and we lost about half our monks. Once Dashi got a hold of it again, he made it impossible to use to find enemies so that we wouldn't have to post a bunch of 'now hiring' signs everywhere. It's still pretty dangerous, though. There's no telling what criminals could do with it..."

As Dojo unfurled into his full form, something clicked in Kimiko's mind. She didn't want to say it, she wanted to forget the thought even crossed her mind. Her brain fought the words down the second the idea formed. That well honed feeling of denial struck her even as she climbed onto Dojo's back. No, she should leave the past alone. She couldn't keep trying and giving up and trying her whole life. She had to keep personal issues out of her duties to the Xiaolin. She couldn't run around using Wu for her own issues. But her mind and her heart were disconnected. A chance to find her mother. Her _mother_, who she'd never even met. She tried to keep her mouth shut and think about something else.

She couldn't. Suddenly, she blurted out, "Could I find my mother with it?"

Dojo blinked. "Well, yeah, if she's alive, this baby will find her. Why'd you ask?"

An embarrassed blush worked its way up Kimiko's face, now that everyone was staring at her. The Japanese part of her mind, the part that was prideful, told her to shut up. This was not a subject anyone else could ever know about. She'd lived the last six years under the premise that her mother was dead and that was that. The Tohomiko family, as far as anyone knew, didn't have a clue what happened. The world was not supposed to know anything else was known. Her heart, on the other hand, was not listening to her mind. How many times had she wanted to tell someone, to run to someone and ask for their help? Even Keiko didn't know about this. Secrets weren't the giddy fun movies made them out to be. Secrets weighed on her like a thick blanket. Her father would kill her for this, but she couldn't keep it down anymore. It was like water waiting to break forth from a dam. Screw what she'd been trying to tell herself. There was no pride among the Dragons, because all of them had seen her at her worst as it was. If anyone could keep a secret, they could. She trusted them, she realized, more than she trusted anyone else. And in that moment, all her work making her mother unreal was undone instantly.

"I never knew my mother," she admitted after a pause, voice wavering slightly as she avoided meeting anyone's eyes. "She left my dad and I to go live in China when I was small."

"Why?" Omi asked as Dojo took off, gliding easily into the air. "Were you not a cute baby?"

Kimiko smiled in spite of the heaviness settling in her heart and mind. "It wasn't that, Omi." She sighed, and ran a hand through her hair. "I'm not really sure why she left. My dad said she got involved with a Chinese crime lord and disappeared, but that's all I know."

"I see." The Water Dragon paused, his round face dead serious. "Then we shall rescue her!" He pumped a tiny fist in the air. "We shall get the Anklet of Anetkah, arm ourselves with all the Shen Gon Wu we can carry, summon a thousand warriors from across China, and march into the criminal's home in the dead of night, rescuing her once and for ALL!" As Omi spoke, his tone grew increasingly intense and dark as he stood up and waved his fists angrily.

Now everyone stared at Omi, instead of her.

"That... might be a bit much, partner," Clay said, slowly, as Raimundo rolled his eyes. "Let's take this one step at a time. No need to count our sweet peas without opening the pods. We don't even know where it is, and where Kimi's mom is. For all we know, maybe she escaped and is trying to make it home on foot. China's a big country; she might be hauling butt and not be anywhere close."

"Yeah, and besides, we have to keep the thing away from Chase, first," Raimundo added, rubbing his chin. "I know I don't say this often enough, but everybody, beat the crap out of Jack. This is important."

"Speak of the devil," Clay muttered, and it was at that point Kimiko burst into much needed, desperate sounding laughter.

Jack Spicer was hanging upside down from a tree. His pants had fallen down, pooling around his thighs and revealing knee high, pink and red heart print socks. As Kimiko's laughter died into a fit of giggles, his face went the exact same shade of red as his socks. Each sound seemed to bounce back in China's Jie Jing forest, making Jack more infuriated as he desperately flailed his arms, which only caused hundreds of pine needles to stick themselves onto his coat, tinging his body orange. He was quite a sight, and the Japanese girl quickly snapped a picture of him on her cell phone while muffling her laughter with one hand. Raimundo just outright laughed.

"And I thought Omi was fashion backwards," Kimiko said, still smothering her laughter with one hand.

"Shut up," Jack muttered. "Help me get down, please? I can't feel my legs anymore!"

"How did you get up there?" Omi asked curiously. "And why are you stuck? It is just a tree."

"Not exactly," Jack said, shaking his head as best he could. "All the trees here are coated with some kind of sap. My robots and I have been stuck here for hours."

Raimundo raised an eyebrow. "But these are just normal trees... aren't they?"

At this point, Dojo coughed slightly, drawing all eyes to him. "The Anklet of Anetkah has been known to put some traps to keep people from getting it. Nothing major, though. Just sticky trees, quick sand, and the occassional weather freak out. I didn't think it'd be up and going already, though."

Kimiko's cringed visibly. "Are we going to be able to get to it at all, Dojo?" Her voice sounded a bit more scared than before.

"We should be able to find it, if we split up. It can only generate one trap at a time." Dojo stated firmly. "Which is good, since I have no idea where in the forest it is - um, Kimiko, where are you going?"

The Japanese girl gave him an unreadable look, face set in a determined frown. "I'm going to find my mother."

And with that, she was gone in a flash.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the back of a piece of paper Kimiko found in the attic, there was a list of names.

One column was marked Boy Names. The other was Girl Names. The handwriting was neat and extra tiny. A lot of the names were crossed out or had been circled. One name in the girls column was marked as 'this one'. If the handwriting meant it was her mother's writing, then this was a list of possible names for her daughter. Kimiko read over the names, excited. Her mother had considered naming her a lot of things, but had settled on Shihong. Kimiko tried saying it outloud. It felt foreign in her mouth, and very distinctly Chinese. That day, she had put her hair up in Chinese buns, and signed up for Chinese next semester at school.

It was her last ditch effort to make some kind of connection to her mother. In her mind, maybe someday, she would be brave again. Maybe some day she would go to Chinese and look for her mother. Maybe then her father wouldn't be so overwhelmingly sad. Maybe it wasn't too late to fix everything. It was such a distant dream. It was such a long shot. So sue her, she didn't want to give it up. She wanted to believe that one day, everything would change. One day, she hoped, everything would be better. Dear God, she wanted to forget her mother, and pretend she'd never had one. She wanted to make believe nothing was wrong. She just couldn't. A part of her would always be like this, at war with her, struggling to find the lost piece of the puzzle.

Shihong means 'the world is red'. Kimiko wasn't sure whether to equate that with love or anger, so she had long ago told herself it meant passion. In her darkest hours, it was something to draw strength from. When everything was going wrong, she would shut her eyes tightly. She was Shihong. She was pure passion. Passion was fire. No one spat out a fire, no one stepped on a fire and didn't get burned. She could do this. She was passion and anger and love. The world was red.

In the past, she'd used that determination as a guilty little cheat sheet for life. She'd been trying to pretend she hadn't had a mother for a long time, and yet when she needed strength, she turned to her. It was not right to dwell in the past, let alone draw strength from it. It was just so hard not to. There was something enpowering about knowing her mother, wherever she was, loved her and named her and wanted her. Somedays, even in the Xiaolin, the powers of love and friendship weren't enough. Some days she needed some personal inner fire to draw from. Was it right? No. Did it make sense? Not really. But it was the last little piece of her mother she could cling to. It was the only way to think of her mother without worrying about slipping up and drawing attention to herself.

Plowing through the thick forest at top speed, not caring about the scratches of tree branches, she didn't even register that it was Chase Young in front of her. Her mind only registered a threat to her quest for her mother. She slammed into him, fists blazing with uncontrolled fire, and they toppled to the ground. He was startled. She was viciously burning him, on accident, from sheer terror and love and a whirlwind of uncontrolled emotions. All of the Xiaolin had to watch their emotions closely, or else they lost control. Even so, this was the first time he had ever seen one of the Dragons act this way. Chase paused underneath her, no longer struggling, and examined her closely for a moment. Then, with a smirk, he vanished, leaving Kimiko alone with the Anklet, the sound of her own heavy breathing, and a note.

A note that read, quite simply, _Meet me at one am tonight in Beijing's city square if the name Laan Se means anything to you._

Laan Se. Lan se was Mandarin for blue. Blue. Ao. Kimiko's knees gave out beneath her in shock.

"Mommy..."


	3. Chapter 3

Kimiko had always been aware she could pass for a foreigner.

She looked white when it came to her skin tone. It was probably because her parents both had pale skin, as far as she could tell. Her father was hardly any darker than her. Her mother was part foreigner. Kimiko was born light. Her eyes were the real damming evidence, however. Since they were blue, which was not a Japanese color, the automatic assumption was that she was _gaijin_. The response from her classmates had always been less than positive because of that. In China, there came the dual stigmas of being Japanese and non Asian, which made things even harder for her. She had always been grateful that the Xiaolin knew no prejudices. Beijing, however, was China proper as opposed to the wilderness where she normally lived. The only way she could compensate was by brushing up on her Chinese and dressing the part. They wanted to get in and out without any incident, any arguments, any unwanted attention. Going up against Chase Young on his own terms meant a serious disadvantage from the start. Disguises would be the only way to lessen the controllable disadvantages.

Since the note had not said to meet Chase Young alone, the other Dragons were nearby. She wasn't stupid, after all. But she was cautious. With her hair in Chinese buns, dressed in a red qipao top with golden neck detailing, black pants and in flat red and gold Chinese slippers, Kimiko drew only approving glances from people on the street. Omi was Asian enough in and of himself to draw absolutely no suspicion, of course. Other than the occasional old couple who thought the two were dating, they went totally unnoticed. Omi was the only one who spoke Mandarin besides herself, and her knowledge was limited. He spoke Cantonese, Mandarin, and knew enough hanzhi for both of them. Omi had to guide her to the meeting spot and ask for directions, something he did easily and gladly for her. She felt rather touched that Clay and Raimundo put up with having so many dirty looks and comments thrown at them. It was reassuring that they cared enough about her to come.

Quite frankly, this whole thing felt like a trap. She knew it was. She just couldn't avoid walking into it. Chase Young had looked into her eyes and called her forth to this place. Her eyes were just like her mothers. There was no way that he didn't have information about her mother, not if he knew her name and what she looked like. Even if this was some kind of ploy to get to the Dragons, she had to at least try. This was her mother she was talking about, someone who had given birth to her. Traps hardly mattered. Besides, with everyone backing her up, Chase wouldn't be able to really hurt her. Not that he would try in a public place like this, with hundreds of people watching. Whatever his trap was, a direct attack wasn't it.

That didn't change the fact he obviously wanted something. He stood by a corner in the square, watching the hustle and bustle. He was dressed in a long black Chinese jacket, with gold accents. Underneath his black pants, she spotted his normal footwear. She knew why: she had attacked one of the most feared evil doers on the planet unhesitatingly before. There was every chance that, if he provoked her, she'd do it again. Even in public. Clay once used the American expression 'berserk button' in front of her. A berserk button is, he explained, a subject that turns normal people into angry, vicious hotheads. Kimiko was very aware that right now, her berserk button was her mother. Chase was dealing with a side of Kimiko she herself hardly ever let out, the side so intense it could be lethal. Playing with fire had never seemed more fitting of a phrase. Her eyes glinted dangerously as they met his.

"Chase," she said quietly, in English so no one could listen in, "You're early."

"So are you," he shot back dryly. "By half an hour. A bit much, don't you think?"

"We are stylishly early," Omi chimed in. No one thought to correct him that the phrase he was looking for was 'fashionably late'.

"You brought the child," Chase noted. "A wise choice, given where we are. I think you'll find it isn't a necessity to be so on guard, however. Contrary to whatever you believe, I'm not about to attack you. And if you brought Omi to be your voice of reason, I fear you're too insane to negotiate with."

"Just shut up and tell me where my mother is." That wasn't a request, either. Her hands were clenched into tight fists. Noting this, he responded quickly.

"Now, come on, did you really think it would be so easy?" he asked with a smirk. "Surely you know I want something in return."

"What?" she responded briskly as Omi opened his mouth to protest. "Name it."

"I only ask that you spend some time afterward with the Heylin," he responded coolly. "Nothing substantial, just three weeks. You would not be under any magical contractual rules to do anything. All I ask is that you spend some time reconsidering your alliances."

That seemed too easy. It fact, it was impossibly easy. Kimiko folded her arms and gave him a questioning look. "Why would you even ask me to do that? I'm not one of the Dragons that've gone Heylin before."

He smirked. "Because if you're anything like your mother, you'll turn within a week."

Omi latched onto Kimiko to keep her from attacking Chase. Her blue eyes flashed angrily, her fists clenched so tightly the knuckles went white. Her expression told him that she would have fire blasted him if they hadn't been in public. If not for Omi, maybe the public thing wouldn't have stopped her. The Chinese man regarded her calmly, golden eyes trained on her face. He was looking for familiarities, things that Kimiko had in common with Laan Se. That realization made her straighten up hastily, determined not to give him the pleasure of seeing her internal conflict. Omi pushed himself between them, as if preventing a fight. He gave Chase a scathing look. Although she couldn't see them, Kimiko was sure Clay and Rai, wherever they were hiding in this crowd, were tensed to make a move if Chase tried anything. This wasn't so much a meeting as it was negotiating a peace treaty.

And it was worth it, for her mother. Kimiko stuck out her hand. "I accept-"

"NO!" Omi shrieked, drawing looks from multiple passersby. "Do not do it, Kimiko! Chase Young will dirty your mind like he has done mine! He cannot be trusted, not even for this! He may not even know where your mother is - he's just lying to get a Dragon on the Heylin's side!" Turning to Chase, he added sharply, "I demand _proof_ of Kimiko's mother. If you can't prove you know her, then we will leave immediately. Raimundo and I will rob you of your Shen Gon Wu at some later date."

Chase arched an eyebrow. "That breaks the warrior's code."

Raimundo appeared behind Chase, silent as a ninja. "Xiaolin warrior's code doesn't exactly matter all that much to me and Omi, in case you haven't noticed." Glancing at Clay, he added, "Actually, I think there's only one of us who _isn't_ secretly a douche."

Surrounded by Dragons as he was, Chase Young knew a fight was likely to break out. So he chose a different option, one he was a master of: psychological warfare. There was no one that he couldn't break if he tried hard enough. If Kimiko wanted to be difficult, then he would take the harder way. Pushing Omi aside, he met her eyes and spoke directly and calmly, in Japanese so no one else could understand them. Even though they were surrounded by her friends, in the next few seconds her decision was hers and hers alone, without a soul in the world who could understand what she was being asked to decide.

"Shihong. Your mother misses you terribly. She isn't getting any younger, either. You won't be able to take forever in finding her. So I will make you a simple deal, one you can't refuse. I want you to come with me to my home. There you will use your power to awaken another Shen Gon Wu, the Boulee Mirror. Once you do that, you can take your pick of the Shen Gon Wu that I have acquired. No tricks, no lies, no extra add ons. I will even hold my tongue unless spoken to for the entire duration of your stay. You will not be restrained, and I will allow you to leave with whatever you can carry. Anything that happens in my home stays between us. I will swear this by magically binding oaths the second we arrive. Is _that_ a good enough deal for you, or would you rather risk never seeing your mother alive?"

"It's a deal," she responded quickly. "As long as you swear it by magic. Even you can't get out of that."

Ignoring the protests of her friends (she'd nodded firmly, and he'd smirked; it was obvious he'd won) he stuck out his hand for her to take. "Well then, let's go."

Kimiko nodded, and took his hand. Everything flashed and swirled. In a split second, her mind formed doubts about what she'd done, but it was too late. Her friends faces melted away like smoke. The ground moved beneath her. The world was a tornado of sound and color until it all stopped abruptly. Staggering a few steps, her feet hit the marble of Chase Young's domain. Ignoring the sickness in her stomach that came from the impact, she looked to Chase. His face was impassive as he flipped through a spellbook. He was seriously going to take magical, truth binding oaths. Whatever the Boulee was, he apparently needed it activated desperately. Desperately enough that he would let an enemy in here, and let her do basically whatever she wanted. Suddenly a pang of worry hit Kimiko. Whatever she was awakening would only be put to horrendous ends by this man. It wasn't too late to back out of the deal. Still, she needed to do this. They could always get it from him later, couldn't they? Surely whatever Shen Gon Wu she stole in accordance to this plan would negate the effects of a single one. For a brief moment, her logical mind battled with her heart as Chase Young held out the book to her.

"Place your dominant hand on the book, and repeat after me." He instructed curtly.

For a moment, she paused. She knew that this wouldn't end well. She knew that this was probably wrong. Master Fung would not be pleased. The others would be terrified. Everyone would advise her this was foolish. But... it was for her mother. She couldn't walk away. Some traps needed to be walked into and some chances had to be taken. Kimiko sighed heavily, feeling the weight of the decision on her shoulders. Of course, Chase wasn't bothered by the delay. He knew what her choice would be just as much as anyone else did. If only she had the strength to prove him wrong, she'd walk away. A better warrior would. Unfortunately, this wasn't about being a warrior. This was about family.

She placed her hand on the book, defeated.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Boulee means 'glass person', but it is used exclusively for women.

It means that the woman is pure, purely honest and purely devoted to someone, something or some cause, beyond all reason. There is no doubt, no lying, no deceit, no holding back, no attempts to hide it. Just pure love, directed at something by someone who expresses it in what the Chinese consider to be a pure way. There are many people in love, very few boulee. To be called that is to be a moral, honest, upright, calm, loving, compassionate, and unshakable person. To have that kind of love is to be willing to die for your love without a second thought, to speak truth because lying physically hurts, and to be so compassionate that everyone's problems are equal, from that of a king to a peasant's. Boulee. Glass person. Seethrough. So honest as to be transparent, so determined as to reflect the goodness a person is capable of.

Boulee love was not always, or even often, romantic. It was pure love, unfiltered by logic, reason, or thought. Pure emotion like that often encompassed the woman's friends, all of her extended family, or even all of an army in historic times. It was the love of a rare person, and could only be defined as being truly raw and quite frankly unwise. Westerners took a long time in translating the idea over, because it was so confusing. Love and innocence go hand in hand in Western society. Love and determination are partners in the East. Although with time the term fell out of favor and became obscure, the fact was that no one noting the differences between the cultures would fail to mention that even today, it's the highest praise that could ever be offered to a woman.

The Boulee Mirror, Chase then explained, was made to conform to a similar idea. It would reflect past events, but purely so. There would be no time travel, no slant in favor of any person, just truth. Other Shen Gon Wu meant to view the past became tainted by constant Xiaolin use. They began to reflect a warped, twisted past as they were used more often. The Boulee Mirror was different. Rather than showing its user what they wanted to see, it showed what was requested. It was not even equipped to sense who its user was. All that it was able to discern was that the user was human. Past that, it was an open book. Everyone could use it. Everyone, that was, except Chase. He did not register as human. So, unable to use the most non-biased Shen Gon Wu in existance, he needed someone to wake it up. Then that person could ask it the things he wished to see. That was why he needed her, and so here they were. It made a suprisingly non-evil amount of sense.

Kimiko couldn't help the reverance she felt when she touched it. The Mirror was old, and made of pure glass. See through glass lined the reflective glass, with bits of colored glass mixed in. The design was simple and pure. It looked just like a mirror. Whoever had designed it had planned everything out. Gingerly picking it up, she was surprised by how heavy it was. It weighed what it looked like it weighed. Staring into it, she paused as it glowed faintly.

"What do you want me to ask it?" she asked him, raising an eyebrow. "How do I work this thing, exactly?"

"Your first question must be heartfelt," Chase responded quietly. "You must ask it something you sincerely want to know. Surely you have some past event you would like to have elaborated upon? Some truth you would like to know?"

Oh, dear lord, where did she even start? There were so many possibilities. Boyfriends, best friends who had left her suddenly, the past of Raimundo, Clay and Jack, or for that matter the past of any and all of her enemies. There were so many pressing matters. Her mother was the most obvious, but where to start there? Her mother had an entire life Kimiko needed to know about. Years and years of experiences. Kimiko bit her lip, thinking. If Chase knew her mother, then nothing she asked would surprise him, nor would the answers. So it was okay to ask something personal, then. She wasn't handing her enemy blackmail ammunition, or at least not any he didn't already have. And this was a question that had been eating at her for almost her entire life. She had to know some things she was sure her mother wouldn't tell her in person. She turned to the Mirror and took a deep breath.

"I want to see the first time my mother did drugs."


End file.
